It’s classic tale from the convoluted and mysterious world of the global supply chain. Crain’s Business [via Automotive News [sub]] explains how GM was forced to recall heated windshield washers not once, but twice. And we take a look at why GM took the extraordinary measure of blaming customers and GM technicians for “misdiagnosing” the problem, a strategy that makes for an interesting counterpoint to the recent Toyota recall hoopla. After all, like Toyota’s pedal problems, GM’s heated windshield washer woes are rooted in a complicated relationship with one of its suppliers… and one of its regulators.

Founded by an Israeli law student and a Russian aerospace engineer, Microheat became the classic story of good idea turned big business when it landed a GM contract in 2003. Microheat’s so-called “HotShot” design was refined with help from GM’s engineers until the 2006 model-year, when the technology debuted on the Buick Lucerne and Cadillac DTS. The technology soon moved to various other GM models, and soon Microheat was supplying hundreds of thousands of HotShot modules to GM.

By 2008, NHTSA was receiving reports of spontaneously combusting Tahoes, and ordered an investigation. GM found 41 fires in the 2.5m full-size trucks and SUVs investigated, three of which appeared to be caused by HotShot failures. GM recalled 850,000 HotShot-equipped vehicles in 2008, and canceled its contract with Microheat. Ford also canceled an early stage supply contract, and Microheat filed for bankruptcy.

As happens in these situations, Microheat and GM both sued each other. GM (now Motors Liquidation) is seeking $21m for recall costs, MicroHeat is seeking $11.4m for unpaid receivables. One lawsuit, filed by MicroHeat in 2008, has been administratively closed due to GM’s bankruptcy. That suit is best described by the Crain’s Ryan Beene:

In that lawsuit, which also charged GM with defamation, Microheat argued GM is responsible for “nonconforming high voltage transients” that caused the short circuit. Voltage transients are bursts of electricity that occur randomly and circulate throughout a vehicle’s electrical system and overload components.

The jolts were so high that they caused the HotShot unit to short-circuit, Microheat claimed. That short-circuit overheated a grounding wire connecting the component to the wiring harness. Microheat contended that harness was “undersized,” citing internal tests conducted to evaluate conditions in which the HotShot unit would short-circuit, according to court documents.

Microheat also pointed to GM’s initial fix for the recall in 2008, which connected a fuse to that grounding wire. The fix was designed to prevent a HotShot short-circuit from overheating the grounding wire and causing other components to fail, but it did not address the HotShot unit itself.

“If the HotShot truly had a safety defect, it would have been removed from the vehicle,” Microheat said in court documents.

GM insists that the short-circuits were not caused by voltage transients.

“Our electromagnetic compatibility expert has explained that the testing Microheat did to create a fault in their module was nearly 300 times more severe than could actually occur on a vehicle,” GM spokesman Alan Adler said in an e-mail.

The initial fix was chosen to mitigate the risk of a short-circuit in the heated wash unit crossing over into other electrical components via the wiring harness, Adler said. In GM’s analysis of 80,000 trucks and SUVs, performed before the first recall, the automaker found 36 confirmed cases of a short-circuit in the heated wash unit.

Because of the relatively low occurrence of shorts, GM opted for a fix that prevented the short from spreading, rather than fixing the HotShot unit for the recall.

But GM installed a later-generation HotShot module that was designed by Microheat to handle higher-voltage currents on about 77,000 vehicles.

GM found no cases of failure in those specific units but said it found other cases of melting and saw the potential for fires caused by another part within the HotShot module. That finding prompted the June 8 recall of 1.5 million vehicles.

Voltage Transients: the new cosmic rays? What makes this drama all the more interesting is the fact that GM did what Toyota refused to do: it summarily dismissed problems with warranty-returned HotShot units by stonewalling NHTSA and blaming customers. Carquestions explains:

Why would GM blame its own technicians, dealers and customers? Because they were locked in a legal dispute with the supplier who had a reasonably plausible argument for GM being at fault. More importantly though, this was before Toyota had opened NHTSA’s eyes to the realities of a supplier-driven auto industry. In other words, it could. Will the same people who demanded Akio Toyoda be publicly dressed down in DC ever ask why GM had such an easy time convincing NHTSA that warranty-returned HotShots weren’t a problem? Not with a government-backed GM IPO coming up, they won’t.

[Post-bankruptcy] a core team of former Microheat employees is working to get the technology behind HotShot back on the market under a new company, AlphaTherm USA. They are using Microheat’s intellectual property and operating out of the same offices the defunct company used.

AlphaTherm has signed its first deal to get the product into new cars, a contract that could be a steppingstone to deeper re-entry into the market.

Last February, AlphaTherm signed a long-term technology licensing agreement with KCW Corp., of South Korea. KCW is a member of the Kyung Chang Industrial Group and a major supplier of windshield wiper products in Korea, with 2007 revenues of more than $67 million.

KCW bought one of the two assembly lines formerly owned by Microheat and shipped the systems to South Korea, where it plans to manufacture AlphaTherm’s latest-generation heated washer system for Korean automakers beginning next year.

AlphaTherm’s General Manager, who still dreams of his re-start-up being bought by a Tier 1 supplier, blames GM to this day. He insists:

There’s something else in the vehicle that is causing this, and there could be other parts in the vehicle that could be subject to this failure mode

An investor in the now-bankrupt Microheat blames NHTSA, saying:

Whatever GM tells them, they’re OK with that

A dangerous component. A disgraced supplier. A giant automaker. An incompetent regulator. Does any of this sound familiar?

As an automotive EE, I don’t understand this statement “Microheat to handle higher-voltage currents on about 77,000 vehicles”.

But to flash-heat a fluid using a puny 13.8V automotive supply will require a lot of current, I’d guess 20-30 Amps or maybe even more. That gives this circuit a lot of access to stored battery power if something does go wrong. It sounds like the wires were undersized (shame on GM – Delphi Packard knows better than to allow this. Maybe you shouldn’t have dumped them) It also sounds like fusing or breakers weren’t correct. Another shame on GM.

The OEM may outsource components, but they are ultimately responsible for the integrity of their systems. They can’t pass the buck on this. Oh wait, they did through bankruptcy by “depositing” it in the Motors Liquidation toilet.

Properly done there should be nothing inherently dangerous about this product, it was done with half-assed engineering oversight from a floundering company.

At one time, Packard Electric was the best when it came to wires. They still built harnesses to the car division’s specs. I never understood why Chevrolet had higher standards than Cadillac. This does not suprise me.

@william442: Do you remember when you could buy Packard ignition wire sets at auto parts stores? I even bought them for my Fords, back in the day. I still would see them occasionally well into the mid 1990’s at places like Wal-Mart and etc.

Packard wires and cable showed up in all kinds of places. After the spinoff to Delphi in 1999, there was talk about supplying the harnesses for the Ford F150, and different Nissan models assembled in TN. My people at Packard have since retired, and before that time, they spoke about how much equipment had been removed from the Warren plant and apparently shipped to Mexico. The bankruptcy and Steve Miller really made a lot people very angry. Frankly, I’m glad they’ve retired, we can talk about something else at family gatherings now.

My one remaining relative is working up in Ravenna now, hoping to get on in Lordstown. He doesn’t see much future with Delphi.

“Contrarian: As an automotive EE, do you have a problem putting a fuse in-line with a grounding wire? Seems a violation of the first degree?”

@ TOSH,

Theoretically you can put a fuse on the ground side, but you’d still need one on the battery side or you’d have no short protection upstream. Also, fuses have a resistance and a voltage drop, and parasitic voltage drops are generally to be avoided. and are also another complicating factor when trying to predict real-life short circuit performance. I’m just surprised they didn’t find this during testing. But it happens.

“The unit says it has a 60 amp fuse on the power supply coming from the battery.”

There we have it! Ive seen 60Amp maxifuses supply 100 Amps for several seconds imnot a shorted load before they blow. Pleanty of time to cause a fire in inadequate wiring. They are not fast-acting fuses.

The first question that came to my mind is whether a single customer chose a GM vehicle over a competitive product because it could heat up the windshield-washer fluid? This seems like a complicated (and apparently potentilly dangerous) answer to a question that nobody was asking. All of this money could have better have been spent on nicer interior materials or something that shoppers notice.

Granted, I no longer live in snow country, but I don’t recall every noticing that they started offering heated windshield washer fluid systems nor would it have swayed my purchase decision if I had.

As an owner of a 2007 Tahoe I’ll just talk to dealer and get the real scoop on whether I should leave it as is or disconnect it. It’s like a lot of things, not something you miss until you have it. Considering the failure rate, it is hardly something I’ll lose sleep over.

The GMT 900 platform is fabulous and my ’07 Chevy like my ’04 GMC has been bullet proof sans this recall. As long as it didn’t take my house with it, I’d love to have it burn to the ground. Then I could replace it with a 2010 and get the 6 speed transmission ….LOL

Nutcase, –uh, well, never mind… Let’s keep personal opinions about brands out of the debate. Every car maker has both good and bad models. Fact of life. The GM trucks are pretty decent, and stand up well to age, more so than Ford and Dodge. I know this because I sell them all as pre-owned units, and have far fewer problems and come-backs with GM trucks/SUVs than the other two.

The scope of work definitions and specsmanship between Microheat and GM will be important to understand.

This should be a very detailed technical investigation, going all the way down to insulation thermal properties, test reports, equipment calibration, design reviews, and the flow of money and e-mails. Yuk.

GM’s solution – to just disconnect the thing – is very dissatisfying if you like the feature.

Honestly, I think this is very different than the Toyota problem. Toyota couldn’t reproduce the problem and several investigations ended with no defect found before a single largely covered media crash which resulted in 4 deaths. Other deaths are also blamed on this. Many have questioned why Toyota didn’t do more to find the root cause.

By contrast, after a few years in services, GM was asked to look in some fluid devices causing fires. GM thought they had the issue solved, but then found more problems with it and recalled it again. It didn’t require a very high profile Tahoe burning killing a fire fighter for GM to look into the issue.

Also, I read the letter that was sent in.
http://nhthqnwws111.odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/acms/docservlet/Artemis/Public/Pursuits/2008/PE/INRL-PE08010-29866P.pdf

Now, if a product was returned because it was defective, but the product shows no defect, what is GM supposed to say?

A few other things that separate the Toyota issues and the GM ones. GM, at the time of this letter, had 41 fires. It believed 2 of them might be related to this heated washer fluid. And in this same letter, GM said it was continuing the investigation. I don’t believe anywhere in the letter does GM say that there isn’t a problem with the heated washer fluid modules.

GM’s first recall was supposed to be a patch from my understanding. That didn’t work, and GM made a second recall. How is this like Toyota’s recall again?

I would prefer for GM and the supplier to work together to figure out the issue and find a solution but I don’t see that happening. Also, Toyota seems to be trying to find a solution(s) while GM and Microheat are suing and blaming each other. Plus, GM is merely disconnecting the unit. This may be cheaper for them, but it is not a solution. Finally, CTS supplied identical products to Toyota and Chrysler. Chrysler is recalling their vehicles. I find it interesting that two separate car companies are having the same issue caused by the same unit produced by the same supplier. Why then I wonder is this not the news story that the Toyota situation was?

Newcarscostalot– Do you actually read about this stuff, or just join the reply-chain?

1) GM is paying customers for the removal of the system. It’s a token, but it’s something to compensate for the loss of heated washer fluid.

2) Toyota automobiles had no fail-safe programming in the computers controlling their CTS-designed pedals. Chrysler, maker of the most poorly-engineered vehicles on Earth, did. This is the reason Toyota’s problem was a hullabaloo, and Chrysler’s, a whisper.

UnPC, personal observation/commentary that can also be filed here: Toyota drivers know things GM drivers don’t. Owners of GM vehicles know things Toyota owners don’t. Were the GM owner faced with this issue– he/she would actually get out of their vehicle and would know how to open their own hood. Toyota drivers might psychoanalyze their vehicles, consult crystals, or meditate on a possible solution. They’d sit in the vehicle– posting to their Facebook wall about how their car was about to kill them– while being engulfed in flames.

newcarscostalot,
The supplier is bankrupt. It is difficult to work with them at that point. Hard to get units that haven’t been designed and therefore, don’t exist to replace them in the vehicle. This isn’t quite like the CTS unit fix. Something as simple as a shim isn’t going to fix something that causes a fire. GM tried to do something similar with the fuse, but they found another problem with the unit. The supplier is bankrupt. Not much you can do with it now.

iNeon, Do you remember the comment you left for Brewster? Please spare me the high handed accusation the I don’t read the article. I always make sure to read the article. That’s why I left my comment. Again, both sides are playing the blame game. GM is doing this not because they care about the consumer, they are doing it due to cost, most likely. It is probably cheaper to disconnect the unit then finding another supplier to come up with a new design. I do find it puzzling that the unit or supporting systems cannot be repaired, but this may also be due to cost. Finally, it behooves GM to recall and disconnect these units. This negates possible lawsuits if they did nothing and these units continued to catch fire. Again, this is a cost issue, not GM caring about the customer.

newcarscostalot, Microheat’s not reorganizing. Microheat’s gone – former employees atarted a new company under a new name, AlphaTherm. Bought one of Microheat’s assembly lines and moved it to South Korea.

Read the entire article, not just the pieces you picked out, and my comment makes more sense. At least to me. Regardless, my belief is that GM could repair this item but choose not to as disconnecting it costs less.

newcarscostalot – That’s the company I referred to, AlphaTherm. Ex-Microheat employees, production moved to South Korea.

I would also prefer that GM worked with the supplier, but Microheat’s owners knew what they were getting into – parts vendors pay for at least part of a recall, and if I’m not mistaken, Microheat’s management put up a stink about paying from the minute go, got sued for the money by GM, counter-sued and filed for Chapter 11 reorganization, then liquidated.

Having been an auto parts supplier, in one form or another, for over twenty-five years, this isn’t anything unusual. Some people feel that the auto makers is ultimately responsible for validating the part, but that kind of thinking only goes so far these days. In an effort to be competitive with each others, all the auto makers have passed the buck, in a lot of ways, onto a very beleaguered parts manufacturing base, that for more than the last ten years, has had to take the lead on the engineering of the parts they supply. That includes the parts maker validating that they work and are as durable as the automaker customer speced out, and the auto parts makers claims they can be. The auto parts makers all know this, plus the 45 day industry payment terms, plus the fact that the auto parts foots the bill for the recall, all known up front. No secrets, no surprises. No one put a gun to their heads and told them to do business with any auto maker, be it GM or Toyota. If they can’t handle it, they shouldn’t pursue that line of business.

I was not aware of that. I always, to be honest, assumed that car companies (in this case GM) did their own studies/tests to be sure outsourced parts (parts not produced in house is what I mean) conformed to the their own specs. It seems like this would be a good idea, because it is an extra layer of confirmation that said part or system will perform properly. I wonder why car companies don’t do this? It would be a little more costly in the short term, but it seems to me long term benefits would outweigh those costs.

newcarscostalot, they do it on mission critical parts – power train & emissions, safety, etc, where they have to for either government certification, or warranty reasons. But as much as they can pass the buck to the suppliers, they do it to save both money and development time.

And again, it’s a response to competitive pressures. H*ll, in that same response to competitive pressures, Toyota tried to shorten the concept-to-production development time and cut costs by doing less physical prototyping and more computer based virtual cyberspace testing(& everyone else paid attention to see if they could get away with it, too. We see how well that worked out for them. Not.

The auto business is probably one of the roughest consumer products businesses to be in. It’s the second most expensive purchase most people make, the consumer has become a more informed consumer, and yet many times is still reacting to emotion when they make a purchasing decision.

Have you thought about writing an article about your experiences for TTAC? I think it would be a very interesting read and give folks an inside look at things from the perspective of someone that has been there. Plus, you answered my questions and explained things to me I would not otherwise have known. +10

“What makes this drama all the more interesting is the fact that GM did what Toyota refused to do: it summarily dismissed problems with warranty-returned HotShot units by stonewalling NHTSA.”

That sentence makes no sense. Are you saying Toyota didn’t stonewall when it came to their floor mats/gas pedals/stupid drivers or whatever the hell their problem was? If they didn’t stonewall a government agency, they certainly stonewalled their customers, just like they did with their sludge problems. Actually they didn’t stonewall the sludge problem, they accused their customers of vehicle neglect. Moving Forward.

I have a 2006 DTS and I’m sure that I’ll be getting a letter soon. The car had the first recall done before I got it.

The heated washer fluid is great. Clears the windows real fast in the winter (can see steam coming out the wipers!) and in the summer it does an excellent job of removing bug guts.

I’ve never had an issue with it and really would not like to lose the feature even if I get $100. I’m quite sure that they are not going to replace the multi-function stalk with one that does not have the switch for the heated washer fluid. That would bother me as the stalk would be there teasing me of what I had and now don’t…

I think they are going to remove the module and reroute the washer fluid hoses.

Well, you could always ignore the recall and continue to use the feature (at your own risk, of course – in the extremely unlikely event that the vehicle does burn and your insurance company finds out that you didn’t have the recall work done, it could be an issue).

Too bad it’s not a beater vehicle – you could relocate the heater module to the topside of the hood. That way if it did decide to flame up, you’d be able to see it happening and take action (passenger: “AAAUUGHH, fire, that thingy on your hood is on fire!” you, calmly: “No worries, I was expecting that” as you pull over to the side of the road and pour your latte on it).

I like the simpler approach of using a copper tube wrapped around a heater hose or pipe, but this of course wouldn’t warm the fluid immediately at cold startup when you really need it, and probably boil the fluid out (esp. the alcohol in the mix) the rest of the time.

Hilarious comments about the Toyota drivers above too–it maddens me that we have dumbed-down society to the point where people don’t have to know ANYTHING about the equipment they are operating. Think back to 100 years ago when you had to KNOW how to operate your vehicle: You had to first open the fuel valve, then set the choke, throttle, and spark timing properly, be able to crank-start the engine properly w/o breaking your arm, and then adjust said controls (in some cases fuel mixture as well) whilst driving, not to mention the complex gear-shifting schemes that were often required. Not that I want to go back to those days by any means, but now most people can’t even figure out how to open their hood, and completely rely upon quicky-lube places to check/change their oil (w/o even checking it between changes). Sad.

No, Robert, I’m not advocating intimate working knowledge to that detail. For a car, the user should at a minimum know how to open the hood, check all fluid levels, tire pressures, etc, and know how to safely stop the vehicle in the case something goes wrong (sudden acceleration?).

Example: my 1988 Buick Electra T-type had a Teves antilock braking system which relied upon an electric motor, pump, and hydraulic accumulator for pressure to the rear brakes and for power-assist energy. When that system fails, you basically have no brakes (regardless of what the owner’s manual tells you). It happened to me once, but fortunately I was creeping into a parking space at a very slow rate of speed, and it took all the pedal pressure I could muster up to not hit the building in front of me. I nursed it home using 1st & second gears going on back roads and using the parking brake, since I had a parts car at home with the identical braking system ($300 parts car saves me $1800 on antilock brake unit, heh heh).

After that incident, I mentally went through what I would do in case that ever happened again in traffic: 1) stomp on parking brake while 2) downshifting to manual low. Even then I’m not sure that it would have been enough, but at least I had a plan based upon intimate knowledge of the machine that I was operating.

That exact same antilock braking system was used in a number of late 80s to mid 90s cars, and I suspect that it caused a number of accidents when it failed. Mopar minivans equipped with this same system has significant issues with it.

And back to the point, how many young drivers have burnt up engines because nobody ever told them they need to check or change the oil?

To your example of using a PC, a user should be “smart” enough not to click on a web link that takes them to http://stealyouridentity.ru, correct? But how will they know that?

I got thrown off of a Mercedes-Benz message board for defending her– And I owned a Mercedes at the time! Sold it shortly after, and now make weird faces at MB drivers in my spare time. I like to ask R-Class owners if they like their Pacifica at gas stations :) The reactions are absolutely priceless. You should see it when a Pacifica is actually at the station. Can’t wait to start with the next ML.

The SLS AMG is really based on an unfinished Viper chasis. Dodge was working on the next gen Viper with an all aluminum frame and Mercedes came along and decided to help and use it for their new gull wing car. When Chrysler fell on hard times they quit the project and Mercedes kept going. In the future when you’re at the gas station you can ask the owner if they minded paying $150,000 more for that Dodge Viper!